Sunday, January 17, 2016

Like most gardeners, I get a break in the month of January
and February to rest and recharge just as my garden does (although this year is
going to be a little peculiar, what with my tulips pushing up and my rhubarb
sprouting flower stalks in January.) And during this time I gorge on gardening
books, magazines and catalogs and attend gardening lectures and symposiums. This
satieties my soul the way pea soup and cornbread carries you through a wet and
cold January afternoon.As I work constantly through the gardening year, I rarely
have a chance to go on all the garden tours and open houses other plantaholics
flock to, so my visiting of other people gardens happens in a darkened room on
a stiff seat facing a screen. I have been to Europe with Charlotte Moss, watched
Arne Maynard demonstrate his thoughts on various sites’ vernacular and seen Jinny
Blom, Sarah Price and Penelope Hobhouse discuss how frustrating it is to be a
woman in the garden design field and have it assumed that men helped create
their designs. Last week I drooled over Debra Nivens plant palette in
California and exulted in the way she planted new plane trees all askew and
leaning to match the existing ones on the site she was redesigning. Over the
next month I will be making the drive to the New York Botanic Garden three
times to hear three different Chelsea Garden Show winners talk about the idiosyncrasies
of their personal design processes. And I’ll also be dropping in at the
Brooklyn Botanic Garden in a few weeks to join Thomas Rainer and Claudia West
as they speak about their new book, Planting in a Post-Wild World.This is one of my favorite parts of the winter. The
learning. I set up Pinterest pages on plants I must have and voraciously
consume blogs as if just struck with the gardening bug.I fold over the pages of various
catalogues and write next to entries phrases such as “Need 30.” “Yes!!!”
“Finally.” And, “for under the magnolia grove.” When I feed my brain by finally
chewing my way through the enormous piles of gardening books and magazines that
have sprung up (more hoarder like then fairy ring I’m afraid) around the house
I get excited about the possibilities and promise of the back 40 -- one of the
Pinterest pages is actually called “the Back 40’ – and think about how I can
reinvent the garden.Sometimes this kind of thing is dangerous. Last year’s massive
perennial plug purchase came about because I read too many books on the new
perennial planting style and went to a lecture by North Wind Perennial Farm
founder Roy Diblik. Another year I found myself buried in an avalanche of
flower seed packages (with no greenhouse or even a sunny windowsill to start
them in) after discovering various flower farmer blogs. Occasionally it’s
depressing when I compare my failure of a vegetable garden (weeds hidden by
self-seeded verbena bonariensis that have swallowed up the cucumbers and shaded
out the haricot vert) to the ones up there on those screens in those darkened
rooms.I have twice had to delete a tab on Safari so that I don’t
go through with yet another order for dahlias. And I have a basket of leftover
seeds in the basement that are calling my name desperately and begging me not
to order any others before trying them first. But that’s the whole fun, really.
This time of being inspired, of dreaming about possibilities and change or
total unfettered learning, it’s how I restore myself.I do yoga everyday, eat only healthy, wholesome food and mainline
horticultural information.I have
learned all about Crimson Crush blight resistant tomatoes that for the moment
are available only in the UK. I will be growing the Madame Butterfly
snapdragons as soon as I have a way to start them in a sheltered area eight
weeks before the late frost as their double flowers are not only gorgeous, but
supposedly harder for insects to pollinate so longer lasting as a flower. That
martagon lilies need lime and need to be ordered in June at the latest if you
want to be able to get any to plant in the fall and that you can find the best
deals in Canada (I have put a note in my calendar for this years’ purchase. ) I
have absorbed the plant names for an easy maintenance garden and reengaged with
Sissinghurst through Vita’s brilliant words once again. I have IV drip lines
hooked up toboth Margaret Roach’s
and Nancy Ondra’ blogs.I’m
reading every book Carol Klein has ever written and winter is flying by.The other day it was 12 degrees when I woke up so I dragged
the waiting pine needle bales over to mulch the artichokes which hadn’t truly
died down yet and so couldn’t be mulched.The ground was frozen so I covered them up but there were still some
silvery grey green foliage that looked unfrozen. I know that if I cover them
too soon, they push up under the mulch and rot, but this weeks looks like it’s
going to be cold enough, finely for them to get some rest. Me, I loathe the
cold. Just dragging the pine
needle bags to the garden and spreading them challenged the tips of my fingers
and my ears. As we all know, I detest winter,and still wonder why I didn’t stay put in Seattle when I had
the chance, but I am learning to be grateful for this pause. And although I
miss my garden and the comfort it gives me to walk through it at all hours and
poke in the soil, pulling a weed or two or breaking off a handful of flowers, I
am filled with excitement and anticipation about what my upcoming darkened room
learning will inspire.Paige Patterson will confess to having made some of her fantasy purchases this
winter, she just won’t admit to which ones.